The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has cancelled a performance by an acclaimed pianist over comments he made while introducing a new piece of music dedicated to journalists killed in Gaza.
This tweet reports a summary of his remarks: https://x.com/gazaheart/status/1823092772972433916?t=cSmsCSLd1YlDF6MCItAwFQ ( archive: https://archive.is/Uh611 )
Samah Sabawi
@gazaheart
Here is what Jayson Gillham’s said on his Sunday August 11 performance that outraged @MelbSymphony 's Zionist donors. Two of the pieces Jayson played were a cry against injustice and oppression. The first was by Hungarian Jewish composer and holocaust survivor Ligeti. Jayson introduced the piece explaining how Ligeti was twice oppressed as a Hungarian in Romania and as a Jew and how he was forced into a labor camp and survived Auschwitz etc… The second piece was a last minute addition to the program, ‘Witness’ new work by Aust composer Connor D’Netto dedicated to the journalists of Gaza. Jayson introduced this piece by saying in the last 10 months Israel killed over 100 journalists a number were a targeted assassinations. This is a war crime. Journalists were targeted to prevent them from documenting and broadcasting of war crimes. Witness in Arabic means Shahid - from the same root word as Shaheed which means martyr. So there you have it. Two introductions one applauded the other might cost his career. This is what discrimination and privilege look like. #Palestine #MSO #Gaza #Israel #GazaGenocide
Shame on the MSO. As though politics can just be entirely removed from art.
If the QSO did this I would demand a refund from not just the concert he was scheduled to attend, but all my remaining concerts for the season.
A pianist whose performance was cancelled by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra after he dedicated a new piece of music to journalists killed in Gaza says he was surprised by the response, as such introductions are “normal” practice.
Yeah that’s how I understood them as well. For example, I was at a performance by The Choir of King’s College Cambridge recently where they performed a piece about the massacre, displacement and forced assimilation of Indigenous Australians that had been specifically written for their Australian tour and the choir’s director Daniel Hyde introduced the piece beforehand. He wasn’t as explicit with his introduction, but the fact that he talked about it beforehand was very normal behaviour as far as I’m concerned. I have seen many conductors and soloists do this over the years for pieces that have been specifically written for them or by a local composer for a tour, as was the case with the piece performed by Gillham. So for the MSO to claim that the introduction was made without their authority is pretty strange to me. Have they really been reviewing every single speech prior to this? Do they really have a “no politics” policy that the soloist breached? These speeches often seem impromptu and unscripted so I doubt it. It sounds to me like the MSO is the one playing politics here.
Australia is a Judaeochristian settler state, and as such stands in solidarity with others like it.
